This is the joint website of Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

Slutwalk

Over 2000 people, mainly women, sallied down Piccadilly for the second London Slutwalk on 22 September. Home-made placards ruled from ‘Sluts & Plebs Unite’ to ‘Compensate Rape Survivors, not Banks’. Many reflected fury at police, prosecutors and courts which ensure that ‘97% of all rapists won’t spend a day behind bars’. See photos here

At the rally in Trafalgar Square, mc’d by performer Red Jen, Slutwalk founder Anastasia Richardson, set the tone with a fiery welcoming speech:

SlutWalk wants justice for the thousands of rape survivors who were told by the
police and courts that: they were dressed too provocatively, they didn't scream loudly
enough, they were too drunk or too young or too mentally ill to understand what
had happened to them, they must have consented because the rapist was their (ex)
husband or (ex)boyfriend, they were sex workers and should be prosecuted rather
than their attackers, they were asylum seekers and should be sent back to the
detention centre or deported . . .

On Friday 1 July over 40 protestors gathered for a loud protest at the HQ of the Crown Prosecution Service in London. It was the first action of Slut Means Speak Up, the campaign that grew out of Slutwalk London, and was called jointly with Black Women’s Rape Action Project, the English Collective of Prostitutes and Women Against Rape. The key demands were to prosecute rapists and to stop their vindictive prosecutions of women. Specifically, the protest highlighted women sent to prison for so-called false allegations of rape, and to drop the prosecution of sex worker Sheila Farmer, who faces trial in September.

You all look great, you look amazing from up here - we’re so glad to be here together in our thousands, from all our different backgrounds. We belong together!

Slutwalks are everywhere it’s like a wave across the globe: Brazil, Argentina and one planned in India. They are an occasion where women of colour can be visible as survivors, and speak up about our often invisible organising against rape. In the UK and across the globe, women of colour face racist and sexist violence.

Start and End Dates

We invite you to join London SlutWalk with us, this Saturday 11 June. In stark contrast to the way events are often structured, the London organisers approached our group seeking the active involvement of women of colour. We will be marching and speaking at the rally.

SlutWalks have taken place in a number of countries, and more are proposed including in India. Yet some Black feminists have condemned them as irrelevant to women of colour, and dismissed the organisers as ‘white middle-class women’. We reject this view.

SlutWalk is a much needed occasion to break down divisions and strengthen everyone’s right to protection and justice, no matter who we are, where we were raped or who raped us.

We want to make visible the 70% of women from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere who are seeking asylum in the UK after suffering rape and other torture.